Industrial Asset Integrity
Biosurveillance as a tool to move from reactive to predictive
HSE and emission / spill risk are key drivers for optimizing asset integrity management. Microbial induced souring and corrosion are common challenges in a broad range of industrial applications that involve storing and transporting fluids and go beyond the energy related applications. Identifying sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) or acid producing bacteria (APB) is the starting point for optimized treatment and prevention. This includes optimizing the use of respective chemicals while minimizing the environmental impact.
A third aspect of asset integrity is flow assurance, which involves developing further understanding how fluid properties and deposition tendencies change over time through microbial activity.
While these applications are in an earlier stage, Biota is always looking for partners to accelerate the development.
Souring
- Souring of a field and increased H2S production over time is a key challenge in a broad range of energy assets. While the souring potential can be inherent to the subsurface environment, it also can be introduced through “hygiene” of injected fluids either during the drilling and stimulation phase or during enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
- The DNA stratigraphy used for production monitoring in unconventional and conventional plays contains more information that can be unlocked. Analyzing the taxonomy just using the 16sDNA provides a first indication of souring potential in a field wide view as shown in the heatmap below, enabling a proactive treatment approach.
Corrosion Prediction
- Corrosion and the related spill risk can have a huge financial and environmental impact. A broad range of inspection and monitoring techniques are being deployed that primarily focused on determining actual corrosion rates through for example corrosion coupons or deployment of expensive imaging devices.
- Monitoring the actual microbial communities and respective changes have the clear potential to add predictive capabilities and with that optimized risk management.